[theknickswall.com] — Monday, October 10, 2022 7:18:53 AM
Division Preview: Toronto Raptors The Knicks Wall
[theathletic.com] — Monday, October 10, 2022 5:07:30 AM
‘Linsanity’ doc: How Jeremy Lin won over Knicks fans, broke Asian stereotypes The Athletic’Pretty Sad’: Knicks Ex Jeremy Lin Addresses Aftermath of Linsanity Sports IllustratedJeremy Lin says Knicks didn’t re-sign him due to ‘multiple points of opposition’ inside organization CBS SportsJeremy Lin Discusses Anti-Asian Racism, Departure From Knicks And How ‘Door’ Appears ‘Shut’ On Return To NBA ForbesJeremy Lin Says ‘Multiple’ People Wanted Him Out Of The Knicks, But Not Carmelo Anthony Fadeaway WorldView Full Coverage on Google News
[theathletic.com] — Monday, October 10, 2022 5:04:46 AM
New York Knicks preview: Predictions and analysis for the 2022-23 NBA season The Athletic
[www.nytimes.com] — Monday, October 10, 2022 1:00:05 AM
What’s on TV This Week: ’38 at the Garden’ and a ‘Twilight Saga’ Marathon The New York Times
[www.basketballnetwork.net] — Sunday, October 9, 2022 8:05:40 PM
I love his game”-Hakeem Olajuwon admires a Knicks player who shockingly never heard of him Basketball Network
[nypost.com] — Sunday, October 9, 2022 7:58:00 PM
Knicks ‘hopeful’ Quentin Grimes can play in final preseason games New York Post
[www.si.com] — Sunday, October 9, 2022 7:54:59 PM
Rick Carlisle: Knicks Found ‘Winner’ in Jalen Brunson Sports IllustratedRick Carlisle sees something ‘very, very special’ in Knicks’ Jalen Brunson New York Post Jalen Brunson’s former coach drops bold take on Knicks PG ClutchPointsGMs think Knicks’ Jalen Brunson will have 3rd most impact among relocated players Empire Sports MediaNBA GM Survey adds fuel to fire ahead of Knicks’ 2022-23 season Daily KnicksView Full Coverage on Google News
[nypost.com] — Sunday, October 9, 2022 7:21:00 PM
Immanuel Quickley’s combo-guard abilities have become even bigger Knicks asset New York Post
[heavy.com] — Sunday, October 9, 2022 5:46:47 PM
Knicks Guard Sounds Off on Nasty Play by Obi Toppin Heavy.com
[www.si.com] — Sunday, October 9, 2022 3:37:30 PM
Indiana Pacers wing Aaron Nesmith will miss time with foot injury Sports Illustrated
[sircharlesincharge.com] — Sunday, October 9, 2022 3:33:00 PM
NBA Trade Rumors: Heat, Knicks, Grizzlies linked to Josh Richardson Sir Charles in Charge
[dailyknicks.com] — Sunday, October 9, 2022 10:00:00 AM
How far will a healthy Derrick Rose lead Knicks in 2022-23? Daily Knicks
104 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2022.10.10)”
Glad to read yesterday’s thread now that things are happening. Thanks! Trying to make sense of the new names but y’all blend into each other anyway.
Obi looks awesome. As does IQ. But we might as well acknowledge that there will be no space man lineups. It’ll be Randle, Brunson, Robinson, Barrett, and Fournier or Grimes. The two is the only spot with competition for who’ll start. This is about fit and closing lineups should emerge. But I don’t see Randle and Toppin on the court much together. Thibs will deploy our young players on a potentially very effective bench unit with Rose. It’s nice to have quality depth and the last three drafts have provided that. Depth is our edge. If I may venture one prediction / reaction to some of yesterday’s chatter. I think Mitch may prove to be very valuable compared to the average NBA C. Also, safer prediction, Brunson looks like he’ll make a very big difference. GO Knicks!
This is going to be the interesting part. Thibs is rigid about starting lineups, but less so with in-game rotations and closing lineups. It doesn’t always seem that way because of things like his stubbornness with Randle last season. But over the previous two seasons, we’ve seen lots of different player combinations in the fourth quarter, depending largely on who has the hot hand on that particular night. If Quickley is shooting well, for instance, he is almost always on the floor late in games. I imagine both Brunson and RJ will probably be in the majority of closing lineups, but the fact that we have DRose, have a couple of potential lights-out shooters in Fournier and Grimes, etc., means there are options. This may ultimately be the fulcrum for the whole Randle/Obi conundrum. Randle almost always played in crunch times for the past two seasons because he was one of the few guys on the team who could create for himself when defenses tightened up; it worked a lot in Thibs’ first year, and not at all in the second. But now we have Brunson, who is a walking bucket, and for the moment we have a healthy Derrick Rose, who isn’t far off from that. So in that scenario, having a guy like Obi who moves so well off the ball and is a brilliant cutter may make more sense in the last few minutes.
We’ll see. Thibs drives me nuts in so many ways, but this is an area where he’s generally done well and been flexible.
It’s a market rate contract that’s unlikely to provide surplus value, after passing on two opportunities to sign him to one.
In the narrowest sense, Leon was right. He took a calculated risk at the beginning of the season that retaining Mitch’s cap hold would provide an opportunity that made losing Mitch worth the risk. He leveraged that strategy to bring in Brunson. Even though he had to pay a premium to re-sign Mitch, the addition of Brunson justifies both the premium and the risk.
Bravo, Leon. From that point in the process. But Leon didn’t start at that point in the process. He started two seasons before that, and with the cleanest cap in the NBA. He created the cap mess that required him to risk losing Mitch for nothing in order to sign Brunson.
It’s not faithful to characterize the criticism of Leon’s Mitch-handling as “a doomsday prediction.” It was a criticism of all the small errors he made along the way that put us in a suboptimal position, one which we needed to spend draft capital and money to undo. The true cost of Brunson is his contract plus the premium we paid for Mitch plus the draft capital we spend unloading Leon’s mistakes.
In the end, we still have Mitch, and we have Brunson. So you can say all’s well that ends well. But Mitch and Brunson are supporting players. They’re not Shaq and Kobe. But the suboptimal path we took to acquire them will likely inhibit our ability to make moves in the future. That’s the criticism. And it’s 100% fair.
The “negative nancies”, as we’re called, don’t think doom is imminent. I actually think we’re entering an era of relative prosperity. But it’s like climate change.
– Paying premiums for non-elite players = our carbon emissions are too high
– Not drafting players with our picks = failing to invest in a greener infrastructure
You do these two things consistently and your fate is clear no matter how bright today is.
So I suppose we are negative, or at least neurotic, for focusing on what we see coming rather than what we have today. I’ll give you that.
There are like 14 centers in the league making more than Mitch. He’s a pretty good starter. Daniel Theis got 9 million a year on the open market. Mitch makes less money than Evan Fournier.
There was tons of chatter about the *possibility* of losing Mitch for nothing. There always is among fan bases dealing with a pending UFA. Our discussions on the matter weren’t the product of Knickerblogger doomerism. It was obviously a natural thing to discuss and particularly so on a blog that has spent 100+ comment threads talking about Kadeem Allen.
I’m glad Mitch was re-signed, I’m glad we got Brunson, and I’m glad RJ’s contract was less than the max even though I still don’t love it. It is definitely true that the Rose regime has not just hammered the “worst-case scenario” button at every opportunity.
Being a successful NBA front office requires more than being able to put your pants on in the morning, though, and I continue to think it’s reasonable, even natural, to want to see actual sustained success before we write off all criticism as irrational doomerism.
I’m not saying we should bludgeon Leon Rose until there’s a parade, but can I ask for one (1) playoff series victory? Is that fair?
Of course, that’s achievable even for deeply flawed front offices and wouldn’t inherently excuse poor decision making. The Mavs won a playoff series and I think they’ve made plenty of errors in recent years.
I suppose I think it should be considered the absolute bare minimum level of competence before people can argue with a straight face that Rose deserves some kind of break. Sorry, but I think that’s quite fair and reasonable!
Mitch’s contract is good. He makes the most money in the years we’re least likely to want to trade him anyway. I highly doubt we were ever going to trade him this season, and what’s left after is 3/$43M.
“– Not drafting players with our picks = failing to invest in a greener infrastructure”
RJ, Mitch, IQ, Obi, Grimes, McBride, Sims?
I can’t help but wonder if strat’s big-brain chess-betting spreadsheet has been accounting for this enormous cheating scandal all along
I get the interest in what contract Mitch was going to get, but in terms of problems for the Knicks his contract is near the bottom. Maybe overpaying a good player player a couple million is not a problem for NBA teams. If you want to complain about the Knicks FO there are actual bad contracts on this team that the FO has signed off on.
About yesterday’s discussion, i think we’re somewhere in the middle of where the optimists and pessimists think we are. But maybe this bit of a Bleacher Report’s article captures best where we are.
It’s fair to critique Leon. I’m not saying people shouldn’t. But the doomsday posts are absolutely a thing and then when that doesn’t happen, there are very few “I was wrong” posts to follow up.
And goal posts get moved very quickly here when those doomsday forecasts don’t happen. We go from “we’re going to lost Mitch for nothing” to “well his contract isn’t likely to provide surplus value.” Which to me is so fucking nitpicky. Like he’s getting paid a fair price for a starting center and he’s young. Why can’t that be enough?
Does Leon have to underpay every single player on the team in order to be considered successful?
And yeah, I’d like us to start winning some playoff series multiple years in a row and until that happens you can’t rally say he’s been successful. But we’re less than 3 years into his regime. The team has played 500 ball, made the playoffs once, has a ton of draft capital, no super bad contracts and a shit ton of young players on it’s team. Oh, and we just signed a legitimately good (and young) point guard.
All I ask is for the same patience that people would give a Hinkie style process rebuild. We could be winning 15 games this season but if we had multiple high draft picks on our team people would say “our future is looking good!” Because apparently just having high draft picks on your team guarantees you future success even though in reality it guarantees you nothing.
OKC got lucky with their trio back in the day. Philly’s process in reality got them one top 10 player. So many other teams get high draft picks every single year and yet nothing ever comes of them. And Minny is a horrible example. They’ve had high draft picks for most of this century and have been awful most of this century. Getting the #1 pick with KAT back in 2014 and then many years later finally landing another top pick is not a process style rebuild. It’s just sucking.
I get that higher picks means more likely to draft a star. But also, stars are drafted outside of the top 5, top 10 or even top 15 almost every single draft. Stars can be traded too. Just cause Ainge is a prick doesn’t mean we can never trade for another star.
I happen to think we’re going to be pretty good this year and for the next few years. I’m not going to subscribe to some 1 percent philosophy that you can only be competing for a championship or tanking and there is not in between. How miserable a sports existence is that to have that world view. I’m not going to pine over what’s his name in the draft next summer when I have plenty of fun and young players to root for RIGHT NOW ON MY TEAM.
There’s revisionist history happening here. “It would be bad if Mitch leaves” has now been turned into “I personally one million percent guarantee Mitch will leave,” which nobody said and is now being used as a club to bash the “negative Nancys” who will “never admit they’re wrong.”
Yes, it’s that stupid.
It makes sense that those accusing “negative nancies” of undue pessimism have to pretend we guaranteed Mitch would leave even though that never happened, because grappling with actual critiques like “it was very dumb to trade the 19th pick for a worse pick, and then trade that worse pick for Cam Reddish” is a lot harder.
“Because apparently just having high draft picks on your team guarantees you future success even though in reality it guarantees you nothing.”
Another thing no one has ever said. It just comes with more guarantees than hovering around .500 and hoping we can trade for two stars without decimating the team.
“Just cause Ainge is a prick doesn’t mean we can never trade for another star.”
Ainge maximized his return for star player. I promise you, the next GM trading a star player will do the exact same thing.
Hollinger’s Knicks preview is up at the Athletic—spoiler, it’s pretty grim.
Basically he says we’re just waiting for our chance at trading for the next big star after we (rightly) passed on Spida.
He seems fairly low on our young players (especially Obi) but likes that we “kept our powder dry.”
Final prediction: 39 wins.
I’m intrigued, how do you cheat in chess…you can’t simply distract someone and move the pieces on the board when there not looking…
what is it, like wearing an earpiece or something…
Morse code sent via vibrating butt plug, apparently.
I’m not even kidding.
I haven’t read it yet, but that seems pretty fair and accurate. I guess one man’s grim is another man’s rosey.
Hollinger also (echoing JK47) criticized the lack of coherence in the construction of the roster, while failing to note that the team’s depth of players could serve it well as the inevitable attrition of injuries hits all teams.
Is there one writer who believes that Randle will bounce back in a significant way?
oh my god, that is bizarre…competition definitely seems to bring both the best and worst out of folks…
I can imagine a glazed look of both comprehension and pleasure…
yuch…
tough line between objective critiques and fandom…
every time I hear of some sub 40 win total or some other analist trashing the team, hard not to take it a bit personal…
like as an actual fan of the team we should have sole right to crap on them…
As for Hollinger’s article, it’s lazy af. He even posted the wrong record for the Knicks last year.
Good to be back
Hollinger is almost always super negative about the Knicks. Of course, he’s often had reason to be. But he’s always glass half-empty even in relatively good times for this team.
Yeah Hollinger has gotten a lot lazier over the years… his take on Obi, for instance, seems like one written during the 2020 draft (pseudo center?)
But he’s basically right about team construction and waiting for a trade, not that those things are the end of the world.
In essence, this team is in a holding pattern. But at least we have some enjoyable players to watch.
One is the MVP, one is the MVP runner up, one is a 4x All NBA first team player, one is a 3x DPOY, three have been #1 overall picks, one is a future Hall of Famer on the end of his deal…
These aren’t exactly Mitch’s peers, so I don’t see how his rank is germane to the likelihood he will ever provide surplus value.
I just don’t get why some get so angry at those who disagree with their take on a team. Predict 50 wins and a final trip? Sure. Predict 30 wins and humiliation. Sure. Whatever.
RE chess cheating. Cheating in online tournaments is supposedly pretty easy…just open up a chess engine to tell you the perfect moves to make as often as you want. However, the more you do that, the more chess.com or whatever may notice that you are playing too “accurately” vis a vis an engine.
OTB (over the board) is more difficult, but apparently some have put tiny devices in their shoes or ears to get signals sent to them. I guess most tournaments have livestreams, so just get a helper to tap into the stream and signal you the ideal move to make (or maybe just which piece to move, which is a huge advantage). The signals can just be soft buzzes or vibrations that the player feels.
Reddish’s window of opportunity… dwindling.
(Related: Macri is on vacation, so today’s podcast was his producer Andrew talking with sidekick Jeremy. Both are huge Team Optimism, and Andrew just flat out said that he’s not seeing it with Cam. Jeremy tried to be all, “Let’s wait and see,” but not with a lot of conviction. I wonder how quickly the Cam Hive will dissipate if he gets another showcase and biffs it like he did on Friday.)
I’m not an optimist, I’m just pessimistic about your pessimism
Popper:
LOL
Great news about Grimes, thanks Alan.
I’d say that Cam’s window to have a future with the Knicks is already closed. To hope that he’d work his ass off in the offseason and report to training camp much improved made sense, but after last game we’re seeing the exact same bad player he was before. And it’s not even a matter of “oh well, he had a bad game this time” because he had the same type of game he usually has.
Yeah, it would be one thing if his shot wasn’t falling but the rest of his game seemed smarter. He just looked too clueless too often.
“ I’m not an optimist, I’m just pessimistic about your pessimism.”
Man forgets he has Alzheimer’s, returns to normal.
well then mister clash fan sir, you seem to be missing the very tenet of human discourse…
i’ll sum it up quickly:
in order for me to be right, you must be wrong…
yeah, that is pretty much it most times…
much like our friend the vibrating butt plug – cuz it feels good, and who knows, maybe it’ll help get you ahead in the world in some way 😛
just remembered a buddy of mine years ago…whenever you said anything, he was like compelled to start the next sentence with the word: no
even if it was some indisputable truth of some sort, that fucker was guarantied to say the word no, then like reframe whatever was said in some very very similar construct…
just a feisty guy who loved to compete…
Mitch is not a peer of Jokic or Embiid or Gobert. Those guys make 30 million+ a year. Mitch is paid like a pretty good center, which is probably what he is. I don’t understand the problem.
Mitch is the 86th highest payed player in the league. Last year he was something like the 45th most productive player in the league by EPM. He was 59th in daily plus minus He’s got a bit of upside, but if he’s around the 50th most productive guy in the league and there are 85 guys making more money than him what are you mad about?
“He just looked too clueless too often.”
Alan, there are mysteries in life (there’s a NYT black hole story today that made my head hurt badly), and this is one of them. Great athlete, clearly ambitious (to a fault perhaps), and yet after three years of coaching and practicing and probably getting yelled at a lot (at least by Thibs), he’s still clueless.
As with Mudiay and DSJ, there just seem to be solid athletes who never ever get the memo. Odd that so many of them pass through the Knicks roster…
Have you tried “you are smart”? 😀
man, haven’t seen tony in forever…we were friends when i was stationed at the presidio of monterey…years after i left the area i cam back and he let me stay with him for a bunch of months when i was pretty sick…
i remember he would chain smoke, down glasses of gin each night and still run and play basketball like crazy…he was a physical freak…
I’m too lazy to go back to the threads but I clearly remember posts on an almost daily basis lamenting how portly rose had handled Mitch and how we were going to lose him for nothing, especially after the trade deadline. They were most definitely a thing.
There’s definitely a tendency — no, a long and storied history — which I somewhat enjoy, of hysterical and dramatic negativity partly but not entirely tongue-in-cheek on this site. The worst-case scenarios are often quite funny, although at times they get wearisome, especially when one can’t quite tell how tongue-in-cheek they really are (darn that internet).
It’s all understandable given how incredibly terrible this team and the decisions surrounding it have been for two decades. Negative hot takes about the Knicks should be a thing.
At the same time, anyone predicting what the front office is going to do, especially this one, is just wish-casting or making shit up. So I just take it all with a big-ass block of salt.
“I can’t help but wonder if strat’s big-brain chess-betting spreadsheet has been accounting for this enormous cheating scandal all along”
No.
I’ve been gambling since I was a boy the 60s, investing since the 80s, and observing people the entire time. It does not surprise that there’s cheating in chess too. Whenever there is lot of money to be made, people will look for an edge. If they can get away with it, they will cheat.
I don’t bet chess very often anyway, but I never bet any online games.
I don’t understand any of the Mitch discussion.
He’s very good at a few things, limited, and he’s had his development slowed by a lot of injuries. The hope is he expands his game a bit over time and that helps alleviate some of the spacing issues.
Beyond that, any discussion of what to do with him should have been (and probably was internally) dependent on what other Cs were available in free agency and via trade at a reasonable price so we could potentially upgrade the position.
The most frequent discussion was Myles Turner. Either Turner wasn’t available at the right price or they weren’t really that interested.
So the only thing that made sense was to bring Mitch back and try to do it at a price that made some sense. There’s no point to quibbling over a few dollars and taking a huge step back at the position because you don’t want to overpay a few dollars. Mission accomplished.
Now it’s on Mitch and the coaches to try to get him to take another step forward. If Hart looks really good (hasn’t so far) maybe the option of trading him will open back up, but right now he’s our man.
By the way, the recent possible poker cheating scandal may be even bigger than the chess story.
I’m waiting for the headline:
“To everyone’s shock, no one cheated today, not even in an election”.
Every time a vacation with my lovely wife is on the horizon, she has this habit of checking weather.com multiple times every day and whining about the weather forecast, even when 10 days out there’s like a 40% chance of showers. When it turns out to be sunny and beautiful, does the fact that she didn’t *guarantee* that it would be shitty weather make those two weeks of harping on it any less fucking annoying?
So please stop with the “nobody guaranteed anything” schtik. It was relentlessly whining, and it was gratuitous.
And that’s fine! Anyone should free to be as gratuitously annoying as one wants to be! Just be self-aware about it and own it! No need to try to sanitize it. It was what it was.
Mitch was a fine signing, it worked out very well for all parties. He is worth the $ at his current numbers, and there is definitely upside at his age.
But as I said yesterday, that’s not really the issue. It’s whether the high anxiety about losing him for *nothing* and what that would do to our team building strategy and say about our FO.
Weird that the Jazz just waived Saben Lee. I’ve always liked him. Maybe he fills our last roster spot?
@Hubert:
If anything, this team seems efficiently constructed for it’s current state. Many excellent contracts with multiple year team control. The starting lineup is under full contol for 3 years. Here are the salaries of the starting lineup for the next 3 years. Their rank compared to the rest of the league and the average contract salary:
Player...23-24 |24-25 |25-26 Rank
---------------|------|------|-----------------
Brunson.. 27.7 | 26.3 | 25.0 (50th - 26.0)
Barrett.. 10.9 | 23.9 | 25.8 (48th - 26.8)*
Fournier. 18.0 | 18.9 | 19.0 (73rd - 18.3)
Randle... 23.7 | 25.7 | 27.6 (44th - 29.3)
Robinson. 17.0 | 15.7 | 14.3 (95th - 15.0)
Please explain how this is not good?
GoNY, how did you make that text block look that way?
ha al – i was wondering the exact same thing!!!
I used the markup type “code” inside the angle brackets.
I love all the Positive Patty’s so I am not going to defend my negativity any further.
On the charge of predicting that Mark Jackson would end up the coach so that being right would be a way to cope with the horror I plead guilty.
I mean, I thought it was a funny bit too but no doubt I was managing my mental health there..
I missed on Nick Young becoming a Knick also and I still can’t believe it.
I’m not going to stop with the “no one guaranteed anything” “shtick” until I stop getting accused of guaranteeing something I did not in fact guarantee, sorry if this offends.
Losing Mitch for nothing would’ve been bad, and if you think his current contract is good you inherently agree with that. It can’t be the case that a player is easily replaceable but also a 4/$60M contract for the same player is good. So people here pointed out this uncontroversial truth that you agree with, which was echoed in the media as well.
I’m glad the bad outcome didn’t come to pas, but I’m not sorry the possibility was addressed because it was a natural topic of conversation.
“On the charge of predicting that Mark Jackson would end up the coach so that being right would be a way to cope with the horror I plead guilty.”
Yeah, but you didn’t guarantee it Joe Namath-style so case dismissed.
Ha. It wasn’t brought up as a possibility. It was harped upon in multiple threads over multiple weeks as an inevitable outcome bc Leon suckz LOL KNICKS.
I’m not saying you did it or were the only one but it was definitely done and it wasn’t brought up once or twice as a possibility. It was hammered home as yet another inevitable failure by Leon.
The Saben Lee news surprises me. Wonder if there was something else going on there. Reminds me of the Trier situation. Young guard that shows promise gets cut.
“Losing Mitch for nothing would’ve been bad, and if you think his current contract is good you inherently agree with that.”
If we are limited to the binary outcomes: “good” or “bad,” okay. But that wasn’t really the nature of the conversation, was it? Wasn’t it more like one side was “annoying but no big deal” and another side was saying that it was “disastrous”?
I really don’t see the point in either mischaracterizing or watering down the difference in the POVs. Literally no one was against extending Mitch on some sort of reasonable deal. The argument was nearly entirely about degree.
I must’ve missed some epic debates about our GM and his moves these past few months. Having sat on the sidelines, I formed a simple opinion. Leon Rose tried to snag a potentially awesome player in Donavan Mitchel. The trading partner wanted too much. It was the wrong time to go all-in on that one player. The Knicks retained all of their assets and have a massive surplus now. The next time a top-tier alpha dog becomes available, he’s ready to strike.
I felt like the objectives of the offseason were
1) Signing a legitimate point guard (like every season)
2) Resigning Mitch and RJ
3) Continue to build chemistry through continuity.
4) Either a) cash in or b) hold on to excess assets for a true superstar.
Note that if a trade went down for Mitchel, it would likely have been for RJ Barrett, Obi Toppin, IQ and a ton of picks. If that had happened, I hoped that the Knicks would have signed Melo to replace Obi and moved Deuce into IQ’s role.
All 4 of my offseason objectives were achieved and we went with option B to hold on to our assets and wait for a better deal to come through.
Nerlens Noel was our starting C in a year we won a prorated 47 games. We were 25-16 in the games he started. We were 14-15 in the games that Mitch started. Nerlens Noel was paid $5M that year.
Then in 2021-2022 we had a healthy Mitch and virtually no Nerlens and were 27-35 in the games that Mitch started.
So for 2 years we had a better record in games that Mitch didn’s start.
Does this mean that it was “good” to pay Nerlens $9M AAV for 2+1 years? Or that it was “bad” to extend Mitch for $15M AAV?
Of course not.
What it means that the difference between a healthy 2020-2022 level Mitch-level C at $15M AAV and a “healthy” Noel-level C at $8M AAV (e.g. Hartenstein) was probably not enough to have gotten all worked up over.
Now hopefully this year Mitch is a better and more durable player than he has been. It’s a good gamble, in my opinion, Hart signing or no Hart signing. But the main reason some here assumed that we’d lose him for nothing is because he would get an offer as a UFA that we couldn’t compete with. I mean, couldn’t a couple of teams have cleared the cap space to sign one of the few young and available UFAs like we did for Brunson? Doesn’t that kind of signal that Mitch’s value was inflated by some here?
“It was hammered home as yet another inevitable failure by Leon.”
See, I’m gonna keep up the “no one guaranteed anything” “shtick” because I have yet again been accused of making a guarantee I did not in fact make. That’s what “inevitable failure” means.
This never happened. You are making up a thing I or someone else said and getting mad at me or someone else for saying the made up thing. That doesn’t seem like a healthy way to carry out a discussion, or to live life for that matter, and I would appreciate it if you would stop doing it. I think you’ll be happier too.
“The argument was nearly entirely about degree.”
I find arguments about whether something was “bad” vs “disastrous” or “stupid” vs “incineration” pretty boring. People speak differently, this is kind of the definition of semantics.
If the Knicks let Mitch walk for nothing after 4 teams were reported to be willing to trade *something* for him at the deadline, that would’ve been stupid of them.
As far as Mitch vs Nerlens goes I don’t find any of those sample sizes particularly convincing and there’s all kinds of noise embedded in them anyway (e.g. Nerlens overlapping much more with Derrick Rose, etc.). It’s possible that a healthy Mitch in 2020-2021 leads to an even better record. We have no idea, but we do know what Mitch’s four-season track record is and can pretty easily conclude he’s a valuable NBA player.
“I mean, couldn’t a couple of teams have cleared the cap space to sign one of the few young and available UFAs like we did for Brunson? Doesn’t that kind of signal that Mitch’s value was inflated by some here?”
No, for the same reason that another team not doing so for Brunson doesn’t mean his value was inflated.
Most teams are either rebuilding and thus not really engaging with free agency, or contending and thus lack the ability to participate meaningfully in free agency. As we’ve discussed ad nauseam, we’re very unique in not really fitting into either category.
I’m not rehashing the debate as to the wisdom of that, just pointing out there’s a very simple explanation for another team not clearing out space for Mitch even though he’s good (also we had his Bird Rights and could thus beat any offer anyway).
i feel like i’m taking a test…i’m gonna be hurt if al figures this shit out before me:
you know what – i don’t think i get…could you like link some simple stuff on the markup type code…
so – you did not use the word blockquote, but rather this stuff:
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Xcode/Reference/xcode_markup_formatting_ref/MarkupSyntax.html
i had this whole spiel about your use of the word: epic…yeah, that’s one word to use 😛
anyways, all i care about now is making cool looking posts, so, what elese can you do Go NY?
oops, i think i get it now…
Noel’s record as a starter was better than Mitch. However, Derrick Rose only played 3 games with Mitch that year.
There’s also random variance due to opponents, teammates, and dumb luck.
“See, I’m gonna keep up the “no one guaranteed anything” “shtick” because I have yet again been accused of making a guarantee I did not in fact make. That’s what “inevitable failure” means.”
He’s right, swifty, just replace “inevitable” with “highly likely” and you’re spot on.
“If the Knicks let Mitch walk for nothing after 4 teams were reported to be willing to trade *something* for him at the deadline, that would’ve been stupid of them.”
See, I think it would have been stupid to panic and trade him for the measly protected second rounders or G-League scrubs being offered for him while there was still a reasonable chance of signing him, and actually brilliant to base taking that risk on a correct estimate of Mitch’s potential market value as a UFA making signing him more likely. (oh, and if you disagree with my chacterization of *something* then tell me what the offers actually were. Otherwise, please stop referencing it.
“As far as Mitch vs Nerlens goes I don’t find any of those sample sizes particularly convincing and there’s all kinds of noise embedded in them anyway (e.g. Nerlens overlapping much more with Derrick Rose, etc.). It’s possible that a healthy Mitch in 2020-2021 leads to an even better record. We have no idea, but we do know what Mitch’s four-season track record is and can pretty easily conclude he’s a valuable NBA player.”
Oh, the noise applies to Mitch but not to Julius or RJ? Got it.
“I’m not rehashing the debate as to the wisdom of that, just pointing out there’s a very simple explanation for another team not clearing out space for Mitch even though he’s good (also we had his Bird Rights and could thus beat any offer anyway)”
If a team really wanted Mitch, they could have figured out how to acquire him. Since 4 teams were interested in him, you would think that at least one of them could have come up with something. For example, they could have offered a sign-and-trade with an unprotected first attached. Detroit could have signed Mitch outright, they went for cheaper options. The Knicks didn’t have to do that to acquire Brunson.
The point is, no one wants to jump through hoops for the privilege of overpaying for a shot-blocking rim-runner. And even if they desperately wanted Mitch but couldn’t get him due to cap limitations, that is also a feather in this FO’s cap for correctly anticipating the market and having “unique” flexibility.
for the record, we spent months on this, do not believe you can simplify weeks upon weeks upon weeks of discussion down to:
truth of the matter is, wasn’t much else to talk about…we did still talk though…
bunch of folks traveled…some folks had challenging days…some folks moved…some folks changed relationship status…some folks had awesome days…some folks changed work stuff…some folks went through some serious health concerns…
thinking of you often Dude In Knicks Town…who’s strength of purpose was to be here for someone they felt needed them…
did some food talk – sausages…they are truly meat candy when done correctly…
not too much music talk, someone mentioned seeing a great old school metal show…
you know those heads was bopping up and down in that place…oh yeah…
i’ve been to like seven or so shows this year (pandemic resolution thing, plus good therapy), most recently steve miller, it was like a music class…just awesome…
like yourself, a lot more folks showing up to talk hoops…and teach a little basic coding on the side 🙂
“Noel’s record as a starter was better than Mitch. However, Derrick Rose only played 3 games with Mitch that year.
There’s also random variance due to opponents, teammates, and dumb luck.”
Sure. Meaning that there were way more important factors in the success of that year than whether we had Mitch or someone else playing the role of shot-blocking, rim-running big. That’s the entire point, isn’t it?
Noel is a bit of a confounder. He’s far better than your average rim runner.
here’s the bulletin board code i normally use…i’m not sure how much of it works though…
only difference is replacing out the left/right brackets with greater/lesser than symbols…
https://www.moreonfew.com/what-is-a-bulletin-board-code-or-bbcode/
Re: Hollinger’s preview article, it sounds pretty fair to me. This is the key paragraph:
Jesus Christ would somebody shoot me? The last weekish has been good and now we’re fighting over bullshit again?
Because we’re committed for three years to a team that has an over under of 38.5.
@geo
If you just want to post a URL you don’t need any code. Otherwise, you can use the a href code to make a word a link.
The guy who clutched his pearls over a gardening analogy compares everyone he disagrees with to a neurotic Karen checking the weather. Who’s “smug and condescending” now?
It’s a big part of what they do here. They’re not gonna kick starting unnecessary flame wars to the curb.
I was watching the Cavs-Sixers game and was wondering what Mobley was doing in there, being that he’s out with a sprained ankle. Then I finally realized it was Evan Mobley’s older brother Isaiah, who looked like a young Channing Frye. Weird!
“The guy who clutched his pearls over a gardening analogy compares everyone he disagrees with to a neurotic Karen checking the weather. Who’s “smug and condescending” now?”
That’s actually a true story about my wife. Go fuck yourself, asshole.
“He’s right, swifty, just replace “inevitable” with “highly likely” and you’re spot on.”
Don’t think I said this either!
“Otherwise, please stop referencing it.”
Wait, so you’re free to speculate that all four teams were offering a top-55 protected second, but I’m apparently barred from saying it may have been more than that?
We have no idea, but it was something, and something is better than nothing, so letting Mitch walk for nothing would’ve been bad business. I had no idea this was so controversial!
If the Knicks miscalculated regarding the risk tradeoff involved in not trading him vs re-signing him, that would’ve been a screw up. They didn’t and I’m happy about that (and I also never said it was “inevitable” or “highly likely” so please stop shadow boxing).
“Oh, the noise applies to Mitch but not to Julius or RJ? Got it.”
What are you talking about? These are entirely different seasons, and Mitch never put up league-worst adjacent box score numbers.
I’ve literally showed you the on/off numbers Randle and RJ had *without the rest of the starters* and lo and behold they still stunk.
I also thought Hollinger was fair. Two things that stuck out to me were
Which may be true, but may be overly negative given that it implies we will have a similar record to last year when just the same as last year might mean we match our Pythagorean win loss from last year.
And this:
Which is too true.
Tari Eason 🙁
“We have no idea, but it was something, and something is better than nothing, so letting Mitch walk for nothing would’ve been bad business. I had no idea this was so controversial!”
Obviously the timing thing is not resonating with you. If Mitch’s agent told you prior to the trade deadline that under no circumstances was he returning to NY, then sure, not trading him for whatever shit offer was made for him would be stupid, unless you thought of him as a rental to try to get into the playoffs. But if you don’t know that, then it would be stupid to sell to the highest bidder for scraps at that time.
In the real world, the FO did not have an answer to that question. just like the Mavs did not have an answer to the question to whether Brunson would leave at the trade deadline. The Knicks took the risk and it panned out. The Mavs took the risk and it didn’t pan out. It was the same risk, and there was no way to know the outcome before the trade deadline.
Just like signing a pure rim-running/shot-blocking big (the most easily replaceable commodity in the league) coming off a serious foot injury that required surgery and 7 months off (not to mention assorted other injuries prior to that) and who put on a bunch of weight to a 4/56M guaranteed deal before he played a single game post-injury would have been considered dumb in retrospect if he blew out that foot a month into the season and required more surgery. Which is what a lot of posters wanted the FO to do. I would have been very worried if they did.
But I’m pretty confident that I wouldn’t have been posting over and over again that his foot is a ticking time bomb, and then when it didn’t blow up, have defended that position by saying “well if it actually happened it would have been really stupid.”
I am sorry TNFH.
Is this the “Better Dennis Rodman” Tari Eason or a different one?
i kind of got the feeling that nerlens could have played more games last year but for some reason we “held him out” of games…
here’s his injury history:
https://www.foxsports.com/nba/nerlens-noel-player-injuries
“and I also never said it was “inevitable” or “highly likely” so please stop shadow boxing”
Whatever the words were that you used, when you bring up something dozens and dozens of times in an alarmist way, it sort of implies that you think there’s a very high likelyhood of it happening. Are you actually denying that you thought it was very probable?
I mean, it really makes no sense, especially when you bring up the trade deadline stuff. I mean, you would think your position at that time and after would have been “Thank heaven we didn’t trade him, since the probability that we will lose him for nothing is not very high.”
“ Jesus Christ would somebody shoot me? The last weekish has been good and now we’re fighting over bullshit again?”
It’s almost as if Hubert was gone for roughly a week and then came back.
There is a price to be paid on this blog if you speak ill of the immortal Leon Rose.
“JK47 says:
October 10, 2022 at 22:03
There is a price to be paid on this blog if you speak ill of the immortal Leon Rose.”
If that is what the conversation boils down to for you, sorry I am not articulating my pov with more clarity. Rose deserves tons of criticism, and has gotten plenty from me.
And the “something stupid is about to happen because Knicks” stuff is funny! Dolan’s Razor lives on! We all indulge in it. Well, maybe not all.
ackyshally Dolan’s Razor is very real and proveable by science and also mathematics, i.e. 1 + 1 is 2 all day long and it’s never gonna change
and that’s f a c t o r i a l
I’m waiting for the next time that somebody says something critical of Leon Rose and Z-Man does not come back with a rebuttal.
I don’t think I have ever seen that happen. Nothing slips by this particular goalie.
“JK47 says:
October 10, 2022 at 22:43
I’m waiting for the next time that somebody says something critical of Leon Rose and Z-Man does not come back with a rebuttal.
I don’t think I have ever seen that happen. Nothing slips by this particular goalie.”
Um, try going back to his first and most consequential decision: Hiring Thibs to coach the team.
But I guess when you can’t really defend a position, going absolutist is the way to go. Sure works for Fox News!
We all see it here every day.
Nice try though.
Why are people squabbling when they could be gloating with me about Tari Eason, future MVP?
JK seems like you would prefer a forum where all people did was bash the front office and any rebuttals should be off limits. If not, please stop with the absolutist bullshit. It’s really kind of a dickish thing to do. You know that, don’t you?
Here are some Eason highlights:
https://www.nba.com/rockets/videos/highlights-tari-eason-posts-17-points-14-rebounds
It’s actually the complete opposite! For instance: I never have a problem with swift’s relentless optimism. I welcome that viewpoint. What I don’t like is the whining when people don’t share his viewpoint. I’m not coming at Swift with “You never admit you’re wrong when you predict us to win 50 games.”
This whole discussion today is stemming from Swift’s “You guys never admit you’re wrong” narrative, which is complete nonsense. It’s a personal attack over nothing except a disagreement about the future potential of Leon Rose’s Knicks. I don’t keep a scorecard about who’s right and who’s wrong, I just call ’em like I seem ’em and let the chips fall where they may. I have no agenda.
But it’s starting to feel like when I criticize anything this team does, I run into a brick wall of semantic debates, personal attacks, and shaming over it. This place is turning into r/knicks. Maybe I’m out of here for a while. It’s tedious and boring at this point. It saddens me because on a personal level I like Swift a lot, but I’m getting the sense that the feeling isn’t mutual because I don’t like Leon Rose’s grand plan.
I really hope this place doesn’t start to suck but it feels like it sucks right now.
We’ve just started to have actual games to discuss. I’m hoping they spark interesting discussion without a lot of finger pointing
“It’s a personal attack over nothing except a disagreement about the future potential of Leon Rose’s Knicks. I don’t keep a scorecard about who’s right and who’s wrong, I just call ’em like I seem ’em and let the chips fall where they may. I have no agenda.”
Fair enough. I didn’t read swifty’s posts as a personal attack, just frustration with some of the negativity at this early stage. I guess I can see how it would be taken personally, and in that regard, yes, swifty should be more careful with his characterizations.
But he and I are very different, at least I think so. You know my posting for a long time and know that I have hardly been an apologist for this FO or any of the previous ones.
I didn’t like hiring Thibs. I don’t like that they went hybrid vs. down-to-the-studs rebuild. I don’t like that they trade out of draft picks. I don’t like that they re-signed all the mercs in 2021. I didn’t like the Fournier signing. I don’t like that they picked Obi over Hali, or IQ over Bane. I hated the Cam trade. I didn’t like how much they were willing to give up for Spida. How much I didn’t like these things varies, some I see as minor quibbles, some as egregious blunders. Many arguments I have with TNFH et. al. are about degree.
That said, I do see this FO as a significant improvement over prior ones. I like the roster, especially the young players. I like that we have all of our own picks and some excess protected picks. I like that we should be able to generate emergency cap space if we needed to. I like that this is the most fun young team we’ve had since the pre-Melo trade bunch, with at least a puncher’s chance to win every night. I think there’s lots of ways for this FO to continue to improve this team, even without going all-in on a top-tier star in the short term. And when I disagree with someone’s take on a particular decision, or here provocative negativity even before a decision is made, yeah, you can expect a rebuttal.
Once again you’re misrepresenting someone’s argument.
The problem is not that you never criticize the front office. It’s that you never let anyone else.
Ha!! Not a lot of mirrors in Z-House, is there?
It is preseason but Tari Eason is killing it.
30.2pts/14.6rebs/1.5 asts/2.4stls/0.5blks per 36 (20/10 in 25 minutes per game)
71.4% TS% – 70.0% 2pt% – 44.4% 3pt% – 80% ft%
It is absolutely nuts.
Humper and Hubert: *something* bad is definitely going to happen!
43093457 posts obsessively arguing this *something*.
That *something* does not happen.
Humper and Hubert: we never said it will, we only said it may happen!
923487773 posts arguing whether they said may happen, or definitely happening.
Fun stuff!
Sometimes I wish I was wrong…
I’ll feebly point to his -19 tonight as if it means anything
Guy With The Penis Avatar: find one post where I said Mitch is going to leave. It shouldn’t be hard, since there are apparently 43,093,457.
You may find me abrasive (I certainly am), but I don’t make shit up.
People, chill, i’m thinking of a topic for the next thread… it’s about the most recent fan favorite!
Z-Man – I can definitely believe you spent years crafting and cultivating school culture.
Say what one will about Thibs but he and Tari Eason feel like they could have been a match made in heaven